


Tinsel and Fairylights

by startrekkingaroundasgard



Series: 25 days of ficmas [15]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: festive fluff, that's basically it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 17:36:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16999539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startrekkingaroundasgard/pseuds/startrekkingaroundasgard
Summary: The reader is not a fan of Christmas so for her sake Tony reigns in his usual enthusiasm. However, seeing how upset it makes him, the reader decides to deck out the Compound as the ultimate Christmas grotto to show her love for him





	Tinsel and Fairylights

December 25th could never come soon enough for you. You spent the entire month (and in more recent years, all of November too) longing for Christmas day to come just so that it could be over. Not because you loved the festivities. No. Because you hated them.

You couldn’t stand the cheesy Christmas music. The gaudy, flashing decorations gave you a headache. Society’s insistence on being jolly and positive and embracing festive cheer made you feel sick. It was a time of raging consumerism, where you had no choice but to spend your hard earned cash on presents for people you hated and catching up with ‘friends’ you only saw once a year.

Stress radiated throughout the city as people frantically tried to find the ‘perfect’ gift, too wrapped up in the bubble of madness to realise that there was no such thing. Tensions rose as the big day drew nearer. Families who never came together were forced into hosting huge gatherings, only to realise there was a very good reason why they usually stayed away. You were forced to relive the same conversation over and over, explaining your life choices to family you barely knew - all while wearing stupid hats and itchy jumpers.

You were Scrooge and the Grinch and every holiday hating fictional rolled in to one surly, spiteful bitch. If there was a Hell, you were 100% certain that you would be doomed to suffer through Christmas for your entire, miserable afterlife. Since you were not one to suffer your woes quietly either, the other Avengers decided that - after years of dealing with your moaning - this year they would settle for the bare minimum of decorations in common areas and limit Christmas music to very specific hours when you weren’t around to hear it.

It was the best gift you could ever have received. However, as the month went on you began to feel guilty. The others didn’t seem to notice, too caught up in their own lives, but you spent every day with Tony in the workshop. Just like him, you were something of a genius when it came to engineering and design so you spent almost all of your time there working by his side. It didn’t take you long to realise what your restricted Christmas celebrations were doing to him.

Tony was your opposite in every way when it came to the festivities. As a child, you knew that he had never really celebrated the holidays so was making up for it in his adulthood. Tacky decorations lined the front lawn. The Christmas trees were so tall that the tops had to be removed just to fit them in the foyer. Music blared through the surround sound system and there was always some kind of festive bake burning in the oven.

The tiny string of fairy lights hanging over his computer station was not enough to lift his spirits. Every time he hummed a festive tune under his breath, stopping the moment you got close enough to hear, your heart broke a little more. Tony was locking away a part of himself because he respected you too much to force his holiday cheer into your life. For the sake of your happiness, he was making himself miserable. Just like he always did.

Knowing that you were the cause of his sorrow was unbearable. Especially since the truth was you adored Tony. There was no one with whom you’d rather spend an evening holed up in the lab and talking shop. He was absolutely your best friend on the team. It was more than that, though. You were fairly sure that you loved Tony, with his sharp wit and never ending sarcasm, which made hurting him - however unintentionally - so much worse.

Unable to sit back and watch Tony hurt any longer, you decided enough was enough and came up with a plan.

“I can’t let you in, Y/N,” FRIDAY said. The access panel to the lab flashed red and no matter how many times you entered your security code the AI would not open the door. “Boss’s orders.”

You kicked the box at your feet so hard that you feared you may have broken a toe. Holding back a grimace, you crossed your arms over your chest and asked, “What exactly did Tony say, Fri?”

“No one is allowed to enter the lab after 2 am. Not even you. If you try, I’m to tell you, and I quote: ‘Get your ass back to bed because if I have to stop working then so do you.’”

“But what if I don’t want to work?”

“Then I would suggest we call the doctor for an emergency examination since I can’t ever see that being the case.”

It would have been stupid to argue that point. After all, you easily matched the number of hours that Tony logged in the lab and sometimes managed even more than him. The day you decided you no longer wanted to work would be the day the world ended.

The keypad flashing red again at your access code, you dropped your hand and said, “Touche. What I mean, is that… Well, you must have seen that Tony is miserable, right?”

You could almost hear FRIDAY’s thought process as she considered your question. The AI was obviously trying to determine how you were going to use this to your advantage but after a few seconds - and a billion, billion scenarios and calculations run through her central processor - she came to no firm conclusion. Understanding the strange motives of people was still a little beyond her capabilities.

As caged as a machine could sound, she admitted, “All my scans show that the boss has been a little distracted recently.”

“Exactly. And I want to help him. I just want to make him happy.”

“How?”

“I want to decorate the lab.”

“At 3.27 am?”

“Well, it wouldn’t be a surprise if I did it while he was awake. Are you gonna let me in?”

“That’d be against my programming. But… If I were in your position and wanted to short the locking device, then the red and blue wires behind the panel would be where I started.”

You kissed your hand and then placed it against the keypad. Even though it flashed red at you once again, you still said, “FRIDAY, you are wonderful.”

***

The gentle touch on your shoulder jerked you from your dreams so rapidly that you hit your head on the worktop above hard enough to knock over a lukewarm cup of coffee on the edge. As the cold coffee soaked through your t-shirt, you almost strangled yourself with a string of fairy lights as you sat up.

“I hate Christmas,” you grumbled, blinking a few times to bring the world back into focus. Stretching out your hand to check that the face in front of you was not some kind of sleep deprived, possible concussion hallucination, you lightly traced the line of Tony’s goatee. Your fingers lingered over his lips before you regained your senses and snatched your hand back.

Pushing yourself up from the ground, silently swearing to do anything nice for anyone ever again if these were the consequences, you rested against the worktop and let your head loll forward. Your eyes drifted shut as you asked, “How long have you been there, Tones?”

“Long enough to hear you murdering jingle bells in your sleep.”

You slumped forward and rested your head on his shoulder, hiding your face from him. Into the soft material of his jumper, you groaned in embarrassment. “God… Kill me now. I’m so sorry you had to witness that.”

“Don’t worry. FRIDAY got it on tape it so next time we lock someone up we can use it as a way to make them fess up to crimes they didn’t commit.” Tony gently pushed you back, wiping your coffee soaked hair from your face. “Have you been here all night?”

“That depends. Is it morning?”

He nodded. “Gone ten.”

“Then yes, I have. I don’t know when I fell asleep, though. Why?”

“Just wondered whether you saw who did this to the lab. It’s like a Christmas fairy threw up and then a magical reindeer came did a shit on top of that. I know you hate this stuff, so I’ll get someone to help clear it up but - ”

“It was me.”

“ - until then, I… Wait, what?”

You smiled tightly, turning your hands over to show your glittered covered palms as if that would explain everything. When it clearly did not, you grabbed a piece of red and gold tinsel and began plucking at the individual strips. You leant forward and wrapped the tinsel around Tony’s neck, tugging gently to pull him closer. “I wanted to make you smile. You were miserable and I couldn’t stand it. I love you too much to do that to you.”

The golden fairy lights on the worktop edge cast a gentle warmth over Tony’s features. His sparkling gaze was almost too much for you to bear; you felt like a snowman in the morning sun, melting away in the heat. A lopsided grin softened his face even more, the genuine happiness in his eyes worth facing a hundred Christmases.

“You love me?”

“I, uh…” You fumbled for the words to explain yourself. You ran your fingers through your damp, tangled hair, unintentionally sprinkling it with glitter. God only knows what you a mess you looked. You hadn’t imagined that the confession would come out this way - or at all, really - and certainly not in this kind of sorry state. “Yeah. I guess I must. I wouldn’t do this for just anyone. We can just pretend none of this ever happened if it’s gonna make things weird between us.”

“Fuck that.” In the space of a heartbeat, Tony’s lips were on yours. Sliding his hands beneath your top, coming to rest on your waist as he pulled you closer, Tony drew you in for another kiss. This was no shy first kiss; this was years of secretly pining over one another finally coming to fruition in a way you had only ever dreamed about. It was desperate and passionate and overflowing with desire and love. 

Breathless as you pulled away from one another, Tony traced the line of your jaw with the tinsel around his neck. His eyes held an utterly delighted glint which only grew when you visibly shivered with desire. Tony leant forward, his lips brushing against your as he asked, “Do you still hate Christmas?”

“Of course,” you said, running your hands through his soft, brown hair. The tiny specs of glitter sparkled in the light, convincing you all over again that Tony was some kind of gift from above. Fingers tangled in the little curls on the back of his neck, you kissed him tentatively once again, feeling him smirk against your lips. He tasted of sugar cookies and coffee, quite the delectable combination. You couldn’t help but nip at his bottom lip, your heart skipping a beat at the downright filthy moan that escaped his mouth.

Tugging on the bottom of his fluffy sweater to pull him back to you - not that he had any intention of going anywhere - you said with a smile, “If all Christmases were so pleasurable, I think I might have to reconsider my position.”

“Darling, have no idea how pleasurable Christmas can be.”

“You’d better show me, then.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Tony swept you up in his arm and carried you effortlessly back to his room where he did indeed show you - over and over again - how wonderful the holidays could be.


End file.
